Everything You Need to Know About Upgrading From Checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility on Shopify Plus

This article was updated in August 2024 to reflect the passing of the checkout.liquid upgrade deadline and Shopify’s related commentary.

Historically, customising the Shopify checkout could only be achieved by editing code – the checkout.liquid theme file specifically. This tended to be a complex, time-consuming process that sometimes resulted in a sub-par customer experience.

In summer 2022, Shopify announced the release of Checkout Extensibility, a suite of powerful apps and tools for making code-free customisations to the Shopify Checkout. Further new checkout customisation functionality was announced in Shopify’s Winter Edition 2023, including a new drag-and-drop checkout editor for Plus merchants.

This was followed in February 2023 by the announcement that, as of August 2024, Shopify would be deprecating the checkout.liquid layout for in-checkout pages. Shopify Plus retailers were advised to upgrade to Checkout Extensibility by 13th August.

If you’ve missed this deadline and want to understand the impact on your store, as well as your options for upgrading, we hope this article will prove to be a useful resource. We’ve rounded up:

1. what exactly is happening to checkout.liquid and the key deadlines to be aware of;
2. what the shutting down of checkout.liquid means for retailers who haven’t yet upgraded to Checkout Extensibility;
3. why Shopify has made this change;
4. an introduction to Checkout Extensibility; and
5. how Swanky can support with upgrading from checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility.

What is happening to checkout.liquid?

Now that the 13th August upgrade deadline has passed, Shopify has begun the process of completely shutting down checkout.liquid for the Information, Shipping and Payment pages.

Note that retailers can continue customising their post-checkout pages, which includes the Thank You and Order Status pages, with checkout.liquid for now. The deadline to upgrade these pages to Checkout Extensibility is 28th August 2025.

What are the implications for Shopify retailers who’ve missed the 13th August deadline?

If you did not upgrade to Checkout Extensibility by 13th August 2024 and are still using checkout.liquid, you will see the following impacts:

• Existing checkout.liquid customisations on your in-checkout pages are now locked and uneditable. Shopify will no longer provide customer support for updating or fixing checkout.liquid customisations on the Information, Shipping and Payment pages. According to the Shopify Help Centre, “shops using this obsolete code past the deadline do so at their own risk”.

• Payment gateways are also locked, with the ability to deactivate gateways or switch providers now disabled.

• Fraud indicators and recommendations in the admin are no longer available for new orders. With orders deemed a higher risk, this means that Shopify Payments payouts may be delayed by up to five days after a transaction is processed.

• Integrated checkout tracking will no longer be functioning. Google Tag Manager and other tracking scripts added directly to checkout.liquid will have ceased to send checkout customer events to relevant platforms.

From 6th January 2025, Shopify will begin auto-upgrading checkouts that continue to use checkout.liquid. Users will receive notice 30 days prior via email. Once this happens, your Information, Shipping and Payment pages will revert to a default state, losing all checkout.liquid customisations.

Please get in touch if you are experiencing any of the above issues and require support upgrading to Checkout Extensibility.

Why has checkout.liquid been deprecated?

Customising the Shopify checkout via checkout.liquid has typically been complex and time-intensive, requiring advanced coding knowledge. Checkout.liquid customisations were often impacted by upgrades and, in some cases, result in poor checkout performance and a substandard buyer experience. They could also be problematic for security reasons.

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for checkout.liquid was back in August 2022, when a conflict with Google Tag Manager in the theme code caused a 12 hour Shopify checkout global outage.

Shopify has been seeking to ensure checkout stability and performance whilst enabling the meaningful addition of new capabilities and functionality. As such, it has invested in Checkout Extensibility, a suite of apps and tools that make it easier to customise the Shopify checkout and build bespoke checkout experiences.

Checkout Extensibility is secure, code-free, app-based, upgrade-safe and higher-converting. It also integrates with Shop Pay, which means, for the first time ever, express checkout can be customised.

Crucially, Checkout Extensibility replaces the need for checkout.liquid.

An introduction to customisation with Checkout Extensibility

In what Shopify is calling a “new era” for its checkout, the rollout of Checkout Extensibility and deprecation of checkout.liquid promises to make checkout customisations much easier for retailers.

Checkout Extensibility includes powerful platform features that let merchants make code-free checkout customisations:

• Checkout editor. A drag and drop interface to quickly and easily edit the look of your checkout (by adding your logo, changing the background colour, updating the font etc.) and install checkout apps that add more functionality. This seamlessly integrates with Shop Pay.

• Shopify pixels manager. This is a new section in the Shopify admin which allows merchants to add and manage pixels that track customer events.

• Checkout apps collection. The Shopify App store has a collection of apps that merchants can install to add functionality to their checkout. 

Checkout Extensibility also includes a collection of UI components and APIs for building apps that customise checkout:

• Checkout UI extensions. Shopify Partners (like Swanky) and app developers can create apps that extend the Shopify checkout to include functionality that isn’t provided natively. Merchants then install these apps in the Shopify admin and use the new checkout editor to place them in the checkout experience.

• Checkout branding API. Create a consistent brand experience for users by customising your checkout’s look and feel.

• Shopify Functions. For extending or replacing key parts of Shopify’s backend with custom business logic. These can be deployed via custom or public apps.

• Post-purchase checkout extensions. For adding new UI and functionality to the post-purchase page.

• Web pixel app extensions. For adding tracking pixels to monitor buyer behaviour.

Shopify Plus merchants have access to this full suite of Checkout Extensibility features and components to build the checkout experiences they want.

You can find out more about Checkout Extensibility and the upgrade process in Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility Upgrade Kit.

How Swanky can help you with upgrading from checkout.liquid to Checkout Extensibility

Upgrading requires replicating any required checkout.liquid customisations in Checkout Extensibility using the features and components available. This will likely require developer support, and potentially some custom app development.

If you’ve missed the upgrade deadline and need support migrating from a custom checkout.liquid instance to Checkout Extensibility, please contact us to find out more about how our team of Shopify Plus Experts can help you.

As one of the most experienced Shopify Plus agencies in the ecosystem, with a first-class team of web and app developers, we are perfectly positioned to consult on your bespoke checkout requirements and implement these using Checkout Extensibility.